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FOXGLOVE MANOR
NEW THREE-VOLUME NOVELS AT ALL LIBRARIES.
PRINCESS NAPRAXINE. By OUIDA. DOROTHY FORSTER. By WALTER BESANT. A DRAWN GAME. By BASIL. ST. MUNGO'S CITY. By SARAH TYTLEK.
HEART SALVAGE BY SEA AND LAND. By MRS. COOPER.
LONDON: CHATTO AND W1NDUS, PICCADILLY
FOXGLOVE MANOR
a Jiobd
BY
ROBERT BUCHANAN
AUTHOR OF
GOD AND THE MAN," "THE SHADOW OK THE SWORD,' "THE NEW ABELARD," ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. I.
Honfcon CHATTO AND W1NDUS, PICCADILLY
1884
[AH rights reserved]
PREFATORY NOTE.
THE following attempt at a tragedy in fiction (a tragedy, however, without a tragic ending) must not be construed into an attack on the English priest- hood generally. I have simply pictured, in the Rev. Charles Santley, a type of man which exists, and of which I have had personal experience. Fortunately, such men are uncommon ; still more fortunately, the clergymen of, the English Establishment are for the most part sane and healthy men, too unimaginative for morbid deviations.
ROBERT BUCHANAN.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
CHAPTER I'AGE
I. ST. CUTHBERT'S ... ... i
II. AT THE VICARAGE ... ... 28
III. " THERE is A CHANGE !" ... 50
IV. GEORGE HALDANE ... ... 69
V. THE LAMB AND THE SHEPHERD 89
VI. THE UNKNOWN GOD ... 108
VII. CELESTIAL AFFINITIES ... ... 128
VIII. A SICK-CALL ... ... 150
IX. A SUMMER SHOWER ... ... 169
X. THE Kiss ... ... 187
XL EDITH ... ... ... 207
XII. CONSCIENCE ... ... 222
XIII. IN THE LABORATORY ... ... 240
FOXGLOVE MANOR.
CHAPTER I.
ST. CUTHBERT'S.
As the sweet, clear voices of the sur- pliced choristers rose in the closing verse of the hymn, and the vicar, in his white robe and violet hood, ascended the pulpit steps, old Gabriel Ware, sexton and doorkeeper of St. Cuthbert's, limped across the pavement and slipped into the porch, as his custom was at sermon-time on Sunday afternoons.
He waited till the singing had ceased and the congregation had settled in
VOL. I. B
FOXGLOVE MANOR.
their pews ; and while he listened to the vicar announcing his text — " For in Him we live, and move, and have our being " — he fumbled in the pockets beneath his black gown of office, and then limped noiselessly out into the sunshine, where, after a glance round him, he pulled out a short clay pipe, well seasoned, filled it with twist, and began his usual after-dinner smoke.
It was a hot, shimmering July after- noon, and it was much pleasanter to sit out of doors on a tombstone, listening to the vicar's voice as it came though the dark lancets like a sound of running water.
Half a mile or so away, nestled in trees, was the village of Omberley, with its glimpses of white walls and tiled or slated roofs. Then there were soft, hazy stretches of pasture, with idyllic
ST. CUTHBERTS. 3
groupings of cattle and sheep and trees. The fields of wheat and barley, turnips and potatoes, lay out idle and warm, growing and taking no care, and ap- parently causing none. The sight and smell of the land filled Gabriel with a stolid satisfaction at the order of nature and the providential gift of tobacco.
There was but the faintest breeze stirring, and it wafted all manner of sweet odours and lulling whispers about the graveyard. Everywhere there was -evidence of a fervent throbbing vitality and joyousness. The soft green turf which spread all round the church to the limits of the churchyard, here billowing over a nameless grave, here crusting with moss the base of a tomb- stone or a marble cross or a pillared urn, here edging round an oblong plot brilliant with flowers and hothouse
4 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
plants, — the very turf seemed stirred by glad impulses, and quivering with a crush of hurrying insect life. Daisies and buttercups and little blue and pink eyed flowers danced among the restless spears of grass with a merry hardihood. Laburnums and sycamores stood drowsing in the hot shining air; but they were not asleep, and were not silent. A persistent undertone came from among their shadowy boughs, as if the sap were buzzing through every leaf and stalk. Up their trunks, toiling through the rugged ravines of the rough bark, travelling along the branches, flitting from one cool leaf to another, myriads of nameless winged and creep- ing things went to and fro, and added their murmurs to the vast, vague reso- nance of life. A soft, ceaseless whisper- ing was diffused from the tall green
ST. CUTHBERTS. 5
spires of a row of poplars which went along the iron railing that separated the enclosure from the high-road. Blue and yellow butterflies fluttered from one flowery grave to another ; the big boom- ing humble-bee went blundering among the blossoms ; a grasshopper was sing- ing shrilly in the bushes near the rail- ing ; a laborious caravan of ants was crossing the stony wilderness of the gravel path ; a dragon-fly hawked to and fro beneath the sycamores ; small birds dropped twittering on cross or urn for an instant, flashed away up into a tree, and then darted off into the fields, as though too full of excitement and game- someness to rest more than a moment anywhere. Soft fleecy masses of lumi- nous cloud slumbered in the hot blue sky overhead, and only in its remote deeps did there seem to be unimpassioned
6 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
quietude and a sabbath stillness — only there and in the church.
Notwithstanding the dazzling sunshine and the heat, the church was cool and dim and fragrant. The black and red tiles of the pavement, the brown massive pillars and airy arches of sandstone, the oaken pews, the spacious sanctuary with its wide stone steps, affected one with a refreshing sense of coolness and comfort. The light entered soft and subdued through richly stained glass, for the win- dows looked, not on familiar breadths of English landscape glowing and ripen- ing in the July sun, but seemed rather to open into the strangely coloured world of nineteen centuries ago. The blessing of the little children, the raising of Lazarus, the interview at the well with the woman of Samaria, the minstrel rout about the house of the ruler whose little
ST. CUTHBERTS. 7
maid lay not dead but sleeping, took the place of the mundane scenes beheld through unhallowed windows. Even the unpictured lancets were filled with leaded panes of crimson and blue and gold. Then there was a faint, pleasant odour of incense about the building, em- phasizing the contrast between the mood of nature and the mood of man. St. Cuthbert's was floridly ritualistic, and the vicar was one of those who felt that, in an age of spiritual disquiet and un- belief, a man cannot cling with too many hands to the great Revelation which appeared to be daily growing more elusive, and who believed that if the soul may be lost, it may also be, in a measure, saved through the senses. Feigned devotions and the absence of any appeal to the physical nature of man had, he was convinced, drawn innumer-
o FOXGLOVE MANOR.
able souls into indifference on the one hand, and into Catholicism on the other. If there was a resurrection of the body as well as of the soul, surely the body ought not to be abandoned as a thing accursed, from which no good can come. The vicar encountered no difficulty in realiz- ing his views of the dignity of flesh and blood at St. Cuthbert's.
A thick, softly toned carpet lay on the broad stone steps which led up to the communion table. Behind the com- munion table, and for some distance to right and left, the sanctuary walls were hung with richly coloured tapestry. The table itself — or the altar, as it was usually called — was draped with violet silk, em- broidered with amber crosses, and upon it stood a large crucifix of brass, with vases of flowers, and massive brazen candlesticks on either side. In the
.ST. CUTHBERTS. 9
-centre a large brass gasalier was sus- pended from a large ring, containing an enamelled cross, and beneath it hung an oil-lamp, which was kept perpetually burning. Amid all the coolness and fragrance and mystical flush of colour, that little leaf of flame floating in its glass cup attracted the attention of the stranger most singularly. It piqued the imagination, and added an indescribable feeling of hallowed sorcery to the general effect, which was that of an influence too spiritual not to excite reverence, but too sensuous to be considered sacred. Step- ping out of the churchyard, with its throbbing warmth and glad undertones of commotion, into the cool, soft-lighted, artificially coloured atmosphere of the church, one might have felt as if dropped into the Middle Ages, but for the modern appearance of the congregation.
10 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
St. Cuthbert's was the fashionable place of worship at Omberley, and its afternoon service was always well at- tended, though at a glance one perceived, from the chromatic effect of the pews, that the large majority of the congrega- tion were of the more emotional sex. As the vicar gave out his text, his taste for the bright and beautiful must have been gratified by the flowers and feathers and dainty dresses, and still more by the rows of young and pretty faces which were raised towards the pulpit with such varied expression of interest, affection, and admiration.
The Rev. Charles Santley had been Vicar of St. Cuthbert's for little less than a year. He was unmarried, just turned thirty, a little over the middle height, and remarkably handsome. It was not to be wondered at that, with such recom-
ST. CUTHBERTS. 1 1
mendations, the new vicar had at the very outset fascinated the maids and matrons of his congregation. A bright shapely face, with soft dark eyes, a com- plexion almost feminine in its clear flush, a broad scholarly forehead, black hair slightly thinned with study on the brow and at the temples, black moustache and short curling black beard, — such was the face of the vicar as he stood uncovered before you. His voice was musical and sympathetic ; the pressure of his hand invited confidence and trust ; his soft dark eyes not only looked into your heart, but conveyed the warmth and eagerness of his own ; you felt instinc- tively that here you might turn for help which would never be found wanting, and seek advice that would never lead you astray, appeal for sympathy with a certainty that you would be understood,
12 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
obey the prompting to transfer the burthen of spiritual distress with a sure knowledge that your self-esteem would never be wounded. Of course there were ladies of a critical and censorious disposition among his flock, but even these were forced to acknowledge the charm of his presence and the kindliness of his disposition. Among the men he was less enthusiastically popular, as was natural enough ; but he was still greatly liked for his frankness and cordiality, and his keen intellect and sterling common sense commanded their respect.
On one thing you might always reckon at St. Cuthbert's — a thoughtful, eloquent sermon, delivered in a voice full of exquisite modulations. It hap- pened often enough that the preacher forgot the capacities of his hearers, and
ST. CUTHBERTS. 1 5
became dreamy and mystical ; but, though you failed to comprehend, you were conscious that the fault lay less with him than with your own smaller spiritual nature. This, too, happened only in certain passages, and never throughout an entire discourse. He began on the grass, as the lark does, and gradually rose higher and higher in the brightening heavens till your vision failed ; but, if you waited patiently, he descended again to earth, still singing.
On this Sunday afternoon, preaching from the text in the Acts, he held his hearers spell-bound at the outset. Re- ferring to the memorable discourse in which the text occurs, he conjured up be- fore them Athens — glittering, garrulous, luxurious, profligate — the Athens St. Paul had seen. The vivid picture was crowded with magnificent temples,
14 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
countless altars, innumerable shapes of mortal loveliness. Here was the Agora, with its altar of the Twelve Gods, and its painted cloisters, and its plane trees, beneath whose shade were disputing groups of philosophers, in the garb of their various sects. Gods and goddesses, in shining marble, in gold and ivory, caught the eye wherever it fell. There were altars to Fame and Health and Energy, to Modesty and Persuasion, to Pity and to Oblivion. On the ledges of the precipitous Acropolis glittered the shrines of Bacchus and /Esculapius, Venus, Earth, and Ceres. Over all towered the splendid statue of Pallas, cast from the brazen spoils of Marathon, visible, as it flashed in the sun, to the sailor doubling the distant promontory of Sunium. Every divinity that it had entered into the imagination of man to
.ST. CUTHBERTS. 15
conceive or the heart of man to yearn for, every deified attribute of human nature, had here its shrine or its voluptuous image. " Ye men of Athens, all things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness in religion." It was easier, said the Roman satirist, to find a god than a man in Athens. And yet these men, with all their civilization, with all their art and poetry and philo- sophy, had not found God, and, not- withstanding all the statues and altars they had erected, were aware that they had not found Him;- for St. Paul, as he traversed their resplendent city, and beheld their devotions, had found an altar with this inscription, " To THE UNKNOWN GOD." Referring then to those " certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics," who encountered the apostle, he briefly
1 6 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
sketched the two great systems of Greek speculation, and their influence on the morality of the age : the pantheism of the Stoics, who recognized in the universe a rational, organizing soul which produced all things and absorbed all things, — who perceived in pleasure no good, in pain no evil, — who judged virtue to be virtue and vice vice, accord- ing as they conformed to reason ; the materialism of the Epicureans, who per- ceived in creation a fortuitous concourse of atoms, acknowledged no Godhead, or, at best, an unknowable, irresponsible Godhead, throned in happy indifference far beyond human impetration, — taught that the soul perished as the body perished, and was dissipated like a streak of morning cloud into the infinite azure of the inane. Following Paul as the philosophers " took him and brought
ST. CUTH BERTS. I 7
him unto Areopagus," where from im- memorial time the judges, seated on benches hewn out of the rock, had sat under the witnessing heavens, passing" sentence on the greatest criminals and deciding the most solemn questions of religion, he glanced down once more at the city glittering with temples and thronged with gods and goddesses, and bringing into broad contrast the radiant Apollo and the voluptuous Aphrodite, with the scourged and thorn-crowned figure on the cross, he read the message of the apostle to the pagan world. On how many altars to-day might not the words "To the Unknown God" be fittingly inscribed ! "In Him we live, and move, and have our being ; " but how few of us have " felt after " and found Him! In a strain of impas- sioned eloquence the preacher spoke of VOL. i. c
I 8 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
that unseen sustaining presence, which brooded over and encompassed us ; of the yearning of the human heart for communion with the Creator ; of the cry of anguish which rose from the depths of our being, when our eyes ached with straining into the night and saw nothing, when our quivering hands were reached out into the infinite and clasped but darkness ; of the intense need we felt for a personal, tangible, sympathetic Being, for an incarnation of the divinity ; of those ecstatic ascensions of the soul, in which man "felt after" and actually touched God ; and, as he spoke, his glowing words gradually ceased to con- vey any definite meaning to the great majority of his hearers : but one face, flushed with joyous intelligence, one young beautiful face, with large, liquid blue eyes of worship, and with eager
ST. CUTHBERTS. 1 9
tremulous lips, was all the while turned fixedly up to his.
Seated in a little curtained nook near the organ, a slim, fair girl of two and twenty watched the preacher with almost breathless earnestness. She was a bright little fragile-looking blossom of a being, who seemed scarcely to have yet slipped out of her girlhood. Her face was of that delicate white, tinged with a spot of pink, which so often .indicates a consumptive constitution, but in her case this delicacy of complexion was owing rather to the fineness of the material of which nature had moulded her. Light fine hair, in silky confusion rather than curls, clustered about her forehead and temples. Her little hands still clasped the music -book from which she had been playing the accompani- ment of the hymn — for Edith Dove was
20 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
the organist of St. Cuthbert's — as though from the outset she had been too ab- sorbed to remember that she was holding it.
Occasionally the vicar turned towards the aisle in which she sat, and his glance rested on her for a moment, and each time their eyes met Edith's heart beat more rapidly, and a deeper tinge of rose-colour brightened her cheeks. But Mr. Santley showed no sign of kindred emotion ; he was wholly absorbed in the fervid thoughts which flowed from his lips in such strains of exaltation. As his eyes wandered over the con- gregation, however, he suddenly saw another face which was turned atten- tively towards him, and which made him pause abruptly. He stopped in the midst of a sentence. He felt the action of his heart cease, and he knew
:sr. CUTHBERTS. 21
that the blood was driven from his cheeks. He looked dazedly down at his manuscript, but was unable to find the place where his memory had failed him. For a few seconds there was dead silence in the church, and the eyes of the congregation were turned inquiringly towards the pulpit. Then, stammering and flushing, he resumed almost at hap- hazard. But the enthusiasm of the preacher had deserted him ; his atten- tion was distracted by a rush of recol- lections and feelings which he could not banish ; the words he had written seemed to him foreign and purposeless, and it was only with a resolute effort that he constrained himself to read the parallel he had drawn between the pantheism and materialism of the days of St. Paul and those of our own time. To the close of his sermon he never once
22 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
ventured to turn his eyes again in the direction of that face, but kept them fixed resolutely upon his manuscript. Not till he had descended the pulpit steps and was crossing the chancel, did he hazard a glance across the church towards that disquieting apparition.
When the service was ended, and the choristers, headed by the cross-bearer, had passed in procession down the nave to the vestry, the vicar hastily disrobed and issued into the churchyard. As with a strange fluttering hopefulness he had half anticipated, he was being waited for. A lady was moving slowly about among the graves, pausing now and again to read an inscription on a stone, but keeping a constant observa- tion on the church doors. As he came out of the porch, she advanced to meet him, with a smile upon the face which
ST. CUTHBERT\S. 2 3
had so terribly disconcerted him. She was a most beautiful, starry-looking creature — a tall, graceful, supple figure, with the exquisitely moulded head of a Greek statue ; a ripe rich complexion suffused with a blush-rose tint ; large lovely black eyes full of fire and soft- ness ; long, curved, black eyelashes ; a profusion of silky black hair parted in little waves on a broad, bright forehead ; and a pair of sweet, red lips.
She held out a little white hand to him, and, as he took it, their first words were uttered simultaneously.
" Ellen ! "
" Mr. Santley ! "
<l I never dreamed," said the vicar, excitedly, " I never dared to hope, to see you again ! "
" Oh, the world is very small," she replied gaily, " and people keep crossing
24 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
each other at the most unexpected times and in the oddest of places. But I am so glad to see you. Are you doing well ? You can scarcely imagine how curious it was when I recognized you to-day. Of course I had heard your name as our vicar, but I had no idea it could bejjw/."
" I am sure you are not more glad than I am," rejoined the vicar. " Are you staying at Omberley ? Have you friends here ? "
She regarded him for a moment with a mixed expression of surprise and amusement.
" Do you not know that I am one of your parishioners now ? " she asked, with a pleasant laugh.
He looked wonderingly into her dark, joyous eyes, and felt a sudden sense of chill and darkness within him, as a quick
ST. CUTHBERTS. 25
intelligence of who and what she now was flashed into his mind.
"Are you at the Manor ?" he asked, in a low, agitated voice.
" Yes," she answered, without noticing his emotion. " We arrived only yester- day, and have hardly had time yet to feel that we are at home ; but I could not resist the inclination to see what sort of a church, and what sort of a vicar," she added, with a glance of sly .-candour, " we had at St. Cuthbert's. I am really so glad I came. Of course you will call and see us as soon and as often as you can, will you not ? Mr. Haldane will be delighted, I know."
" You are very kind," said the vicar, scarcely aware of what he was saying.
" Indeed, I wish to be so," she replied, smiling. " Of course you know Mr. Haldane ? "
26 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
"No; I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting him. He — you had gone abroad before I came to Omberley."
" Then you have not been here long?"
" Not quite a year yet."
" And do you like the place — and the people ? '"
" Both, very much indeed ! "
"You are not married yet, I think Mr. Haldanesaid?"
The vicar looked at her with a sad- ness that was almost reproachful as he answered, " No ; I have my sister living with me."
" How pleasant ! You must bring Miss Santley with you when you come, will you not ? "
As she spoke she moved slowly towards the gateway opening on to the road, where a little basket-carriage was
ST. CUTHBERTS. 27
awaiting her. He accompanied her, and for a few seconds there w,as silence between them. Then they shook hands again before she got into the carriage, and she repeated her assurance—
" I am so glad to have met you, Mr. Santley!"
She took the reins, and, lightly flicking the ponies with the whip, flashed upon him a farewell smile from those dark, spiritual eyes and laughing lips.
The vicar turned back into the church- yard, and following a narrow path that led across the sward through a wicket and a small beech plantation, entered the Vicarage with a pale, troubled face.
28 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
• CHAPTER II.
AT THE VICARAGE.
WHEN he' reached the house he found that his presence was needed at the bedside of a labourer, who had met with a serious accident a day or two before, and who was now sinking rapidly. Mr. Santley was a man who never be- grudged time or trouble in the interests of his parishioners ; and, though he had yet another service to attend, and was already fatigued by the work of the day, he readily signified his willingness to comply with the request of the dying man, and at once started for the village.
AT THE VICARAGE. 29
He felt at the moment that the duty placed before him would be a relief from the thronging recollections and the wild promptings which had set his heart and brain in a turmoil. As he went down the road, however, the face of the dying man who had sent to seek his priestly aid, and the face of the beautiful wife of the owner of Foxglove Manor, seemed to be striv- ing for mastery over him ; he was un- able to concentrate his attention on any subject. His will was in abeyance, and he appeared to himself to be in a sort of waking nightmare, in which the most distorted thoughts of marriage and death, of a lost love and of a lost God, of the mockery of life, the mockery of youth, the mockery of religion, presented them- selves before him in a hideous masque- rade, till the function he was about to
30 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
fulfil appeared to him at one moment a sacrilege and at another a degrading folly.
To understand in some degree the vicar's mental condition, it is necessary to glance back on his past life. In early manhood Charles Santley had been seriously impressed with the sense of a special vocation to a religious life. He was the son of a wealthy mer- chant, whose entire fortune had perished in one of our great commercial crises, and whose death had followed close upon his ruin. Up to that period Charles had been undecided as to his choice of a pursuit ; but the necessity of making an immediate selection resulted in his devoting himself to the Church. Barely sufficient had been saved from the wreck of their property to support his widowed mother and his sister. For
AT THE VICARAGE. 31
himself, he was endowed with a splendid physique, a keen intellect, and indomit- able energy ; and he at once flung him- self into his new career. He supported himself by teaching until he was ad- mitted to orders, when he obtained a curacy, and eventually, through the interest of some old friends of his father, he was presented with the living of St. Cuthbert's. In the course of these years of struggle, however, there was gradually developing within the man a spirit which threatened to render his .success worse than useless to him. Ardent, emotional, profoundly convinced of the eternal truths of revelation and of the glorious mission of the Church, the young clergyman was at the same time boldly speculative and keenly alive to the grandiose developments of the modern schools of thought. It was not
32 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
till he stood on the extreme verge of science and looked beyond that he fully realized his position. He then per- ceived with horror that it was no longer impossible — that it was even no longer difficult — to regard the great message 6f redemption as a dream of the world,
:he glorious faith of Christendom as.
i purely ethnic mythology, morality as a merely natural growth of a natural in- stinct of self-preservation. Indeed, the difficulty consisted in believing other- wise. The Fatherhood of a personal God was slipping away from his soul ; the Sonship of a Saviour was melting into a fantastic unreality ; the conviction of a personal immortality was dissi- pating into mental mist and darkness. The mystery of evil was growing into a fiendish enigma ; virtue passed him, and showed herself to be a hollow mask.
AT THE VICARAGE. 33
His whole nature rose in revolt against this horrible scientific travesty of God's universe. He shrank back alike from the new truths and from the theories evolved from them. His faith could not stand the test of the wider knowledge. If God were indeed a myth, immortality but a dream, virtue an unprofitable delusion, man simply a beast gifted with speech, better the old faith concerning all these — accepted though it were in despite of reason and in outrage of immortal truth — than the hideous simulacra of the new philosophy. He cast himself back upon the bosom of the Church ; he clung to her as to the garment of God ; but he was powerless to exorcise the spirit of scepticism. It rose before him in sacred places, it scoffed at his most earnest and impas- sioned utterances ; he seemed to hear
VOL. I. D
34 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
within himself cynical laughter as he stood at the bedside of the dying ; when he knelt to pray it stood at his ear and suggested blasphemy ; it con- verted the solemn light of the Church into a motley atmosphere of superstition; it stimulated his strong animal nature to the very bounds of self-restraint. Still, if he was unable to exorcise it, he had yet the strength to contend with and to master it. Precisely because he was sceptical he was rigid in outward doc- trine, zealous for forms, and indefatigable in the discharge of his clerical functions. In his passionate endeavour to convince himself, he convinced his hearers and confirmed them in the faith in which he was himself unable to trust.
To-day the old conflict between the sacerdotal and the sceptical was com- plicated by new elements of spiritual
AT THE VICARAGE. 35
discord. After seven years of hopeless separation, Charles Santley had once more stood face to face with the em- bodied dream and inspiration of his early manhood, and had found her, in the full lustre of her peerless woman- hood, another man's wife. During those years he had, it was true, recon- ciled himself to what then had been forced upon him as the inevitable, and he had sternly set himself to master the 'problem of his existence, without any secret hope that in the coming years his success might bring her within his reach ; but he had never forgotten her. She was to him the starry poetry of his youth. He looked back to the time when he had first known and loved her, as a sadder and a wiser world looks back to the Golden Age. The memory of her was the
36 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
ghost of an ancient worship, flitting in a dim rosy twilight about the Elysian fields of memory, and, it being twilight, the fields were touched with a hallowed feeling of loss and a divine sentiment of regret. And now — oh, bitter irony of time and fortune ! — now that he had achieved success, now that all the old gulfs which had separated them were spanned with golden bridges, now that he might have claimed her and she might have been proud to acknowledge the claim, she once more crossed his life — a vision of beauty, a star of inspi- ration— and once more he knew that she was hopelessly, infinitely more hopelessly than ever, raised beyond his seeking.
He was detained so long at the bed- side of the dying man that, by the time he had again reached the Vicarage, the
AT THE VICARAGE. 37
bells were ringing for evening service and the western sky was ablaze with sunset. In the church the light streamed through the lancets and the painted casements, filling the air with motley breadths of glowing colour, and painting pillar and arch and the brown sandstone with glorious blazonry. Even in the curtained nook near the organ the space was flooded with enchanted lights, and Edith Dove sat beside the tall gilded instrument like a picture of St. Cecilia in an illuminated missal. In the pulpit the vicar stood as if transfigured. He spoke, too, as though he felt that this was the splendour of a new heaven opening upon a new earth, and the glad rustle of the trees in the cool breeze outside was the murmur of paradise.
" We shall not all sleep, but we shall all
3 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
be changed," were the words of his text, and throughout the fervid exposition of the apostle's faith in the resurrection the sweet, blue eyes and the eager lips of the organist were turned towards the preacher. He seemed this evening, however, to be unconscious of her pre- sence. He addressed himself entirely to the listeners in the pews in front of him, and never cast even a solitary glance towards the aisle where she sat.
At the close of the service Edith found Miss Santley waiting for her at the entrance. It had now been cus- tomary for several weeks past for Miss Dove to go over to the Vicarage on Sunday evening and remain to supper with Mr. Santley and his sister. They went slowly through the church- yard together, and took the little path
AT THE VICARAGE. 39
which led to the house. They re- mained chatting at the wicket for a few moments, expecting the appearance of the vicar. When Mr. Santley issued from the church, however, he passed quickly down the gravelled walk to the high-road. He had thrown a rapid look towards the plantation, and had seen the young women, but he gave no indication of having observed them.
"Why, Charles is not coming!" ex- claimed Miss Santley, with surprise, as she saw her brother ; " he surely cannot be going down to Omberley again."
" He is not going to Omberley, dear," said Edith, who had been watching for the vicar, and had been keen enough to notice the hasty glance he had cast in their direction ; " he is going up the road."
" Then wherever can he be going
40 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
to ? And he had not had tea yet, poor fellow ! "
Miss Santley stepped a few paces back into the churchyard, and stood on tiptoe to catch a glimpse of him over the hedge ; but the vicar had already passed out of sight.
u Never mind, dear," she said to Edith. " Shall we go in and have a little chat by ourselves ? He may have some sick call or other, and he is sure to be back soon, or he would have told me where he was going. Come, you needn't look so sad," Miss Santley continued, as she observed the expres- sion of her companion's face.
" I didn't think I was looking sad," replied Edith, blushing.
" Oh yes, you were ; dreadfully," said Miss Santley, laughing in a bantering manner.
AT THE VICARAGE. 41
" You don't think Mr. Santley is — is not quite well ? " asked Edith, timidly. " Oh no ; Charles is quite well, I am
sure."
" Perhaps he is displeased with some- thing," said Edith, as if speaking to herself rather than to Miss Santley.
" What a little fidget you are ! " said her companion, taking the girl's arm. " I know what you are thinking of. I am sure he has no cause to be displeased with 'you, at any rate."
" I hope not," replied Miss Dove, brightening a little. " Only I felt a misgiving. You do feel misgivings about all sorts of things, dpn't you, Mary, without knowing why — a sort of pre- sentiment and an uneasy feeling that something is going to happen ? "
" Young people in love, I believe, experience feelings of that kind," said
42 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
Miss Santley, with mock gravity, " Come in, you dear little goose, and don't vex your poor wee heart like that. He will be back before we have got half our talk over."
The vicar strode rapidly along the road until he reached the summit of a rising ground, from which he could see two counties spread out before him in fruitful undulations of field and meadow and woodland. The sunset was burning down in front of him. Far away in the distant landscape were soft mists of blue smoke rising from half-hidden villages, and here and there flashed points of brightness where the sun struck on the windows of a farmstead. On either hand were great expanses of yellowing corn swaying in the cool breeze and red- dening in the low crimson light. He left the road, and passed through a gate
AT THE VICARAGE. 43
into one of the fields. Following a footpath, he went along the hedge till he reached a stile. Here he was alone and concealed in a vast sea of rustling corn. He sat down on the top of the stile, and resting his elbows on his knees and his. chin in his hands, gazed abstractedly into the glowing west.
A single word which escaped him betrayed the workings of his mind : "Married!"
Seven years ago, when Charles Santley began his struggle in life, he obtained through a clerical friend a position as teacher of classics in a seminary for young ladies in a small sea-side town in a southern county. He found his new labour especially congenial. A handsome young pro- fessor, whose attention was fixed on the Church, and who purposed to devote
44 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
himself to her service, was cordially welcomed by the devout ladies who conducted the establishment. They were three sisters who had been over- looked in the wide yearning crowd of unloved womanhood, and who had turned for consolation to the mystical passions of religion. Under their care a bevy of bright young creatures were brought up as in the chaste seclusion of a convent. Their impres- sionable natures were surrounded by a strange artificial atmosphere of spiritual emotion ; life shone in upon them, as it were, through the lancets of a mediaeval €cclesiasticism, and their young hearts, breaking into blossom, were coloured once and for ever with those deep glowing tints.
It was here that the young man, in the first dawn of the romance of man-
AT THE VICARAGE. 45
hood, met the beautiful girl who was now the wife of the owner of Foxglove Manor. She was then turned of seven- teen, and had become aware of the first shy longings and sweet impulses of her nature. She was his favourite pupil, and sat at his right hand at the long table when he gave his lessons. He used her pen and pencil, referred to her books, touched her hand with his in the ordinary work of the lesson. Her clothes touched his clothes beneath the table. At times their feet met accidentally. She regularly put a flower in a glass of water before his place. All these trifles were the thrilling incidents of a delicious romance which the school-girl was making in her flurried little heart. He, too, was not insensible to the trifles which affected his passionate pupil. Her great dark eyes sent electric flashes
46 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
through him. Her breath reached him sweeter than roses. Her beautiful dark hair rubbed against his shoulder or his cheek, and he tried to prevent the hot blood from flushing into his face. When their hands touched he could have snatched hers and kissed it.
Ellen Derwent was happily not a boarder at the establishment, but resided with her aunt. Her family were wealthy country people, and Ellen, who had been ailing for a little while, had been ordered to the sea-side for change of air. Early in the bright mornings, and after the day's schooling was over, Ellen wandered about the sea-shore or took long walks along th^ cliffs. Santley met her first by accident, and after that, though the meetings might still be called accidental, each knew that to-morrow and to-morrow and yet again to-morrow the same in-
AT THE VICARAGE. 47
stinctive